Joe Wright | |
|---|---|
 Wright in 2015 | |
| Born | Joseph Wright (1972-08-25)25 August 1972 (age 52) London, England |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Spouse | |
| Partner(s) | Haley Bennett (2017–present) |
| Children | 3 |
Joseph Wright (born 25 August 1972) is an English film director. His motion pictures include the period drama adaptationsPride & Prejudice (2005),Atonement (2007),Anna Karenina (2012), andCyrano (2021), the action thrillerHanna (2011), thePeter Pan origin storyPan (2015),[1] andDarkest Hour (2017).[2]
Wright always had an interest in the arts, especially painting.[3] He also made films on hisSuper 8 camera and spent time in the evenings acting in a drama club. Wright isdyslexic. He went toIslington Green Secondary School, but left without anyGCSEs.[4]
He began his career working at his parents' puppet theatre, theLittle Angel Theatre in Islington. He also took classes at the Anna Scher Theatre School and acted professionally on stage and camera. He spent an artfoundation year atCamberwell College of Arts, before taking a degree in fine art and film atCentral St Martins[5] where he was tutored byMalcolm Le Grice andVera Neubauer. In his last year of studies he received a scholarship to make ashort film for theBBC that won several awards.
During the 1990s, he worked at Oil Factory, amusic videoproduction company based in Caledonian Road, Kings Cross. He worked on a variety of productions in numerous roles, including casting director. Here, he was able to get the opportunity to direct some music videos. Alongside this, particularly on the strength of his short film work, he was also developingThe End, his second short film. During this decade, he also worked part-time as a roadie for Vegetable Vision, who created visuals for electronic music bands such asChemical Brothers,Darren Emerson,Underworld andAndrew Weatherall. Wright attributes some of the aesthetic and emotion of the UKrave scene as an influence on his work.[6]
On the success of his first short film, Wright was offered the script for the serialNature Boy (2000).[7]
He followed this up with the serialsBodily Harm (2002) withTimothy Spall and the highly acclaimedCharles II: The Power and the Passion (2003) withRufus Sewell, which won theBAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial.
In 2022, Wright began directing aneight-part adaptation of the bestselling novelM: Son of the Century, ahistorical novel byAntonio Scurati recounting the rise of Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini.[8]
In 2023, Wright was developing an adaptation forHBO of the bestselling non-fiction bookEmpty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune aboutheiressHuguette Clark, daughter ofcopper baron andUnited States SenatorWilliam A. Clark.[9]
In 2005, Wright made the transition to feature films with his critically acclaimed adaptation ofPride & Prejudice starringKeira Knightley andMatthew Macfadyen. It received numerous accolades, nominations and awards, including fourAcademy Award nominations (includingBest Actress) and sixBAFTA nominations (Wright won for Most Promising Newcomer).
Wright's next feature was an adaptation ofIan McEwan'sBooker Prize-shortlisted novelAtonement (2007), which reunited Wright withKeira Knightley, and also starsJames McAvoy andSaoirse Ronan. It was nominated for sevenGolden Globe Awards, more than any other film that year. Though Wright was not nominated for director, the film received seven Academy Award nominations, winning only for Best Original Score. At the BAFTA Awards, it received 14 nominations and won Best Film and Best Production Design.
Wright's next film wasThe Soloist, starringJamie Foxx andRobert Downey, Jr. It is about the "true story of musical prodigyNathaniel Ayers, who developed schizophrenia in his second year atJuilliard and ended up homeless on the streets of downtown L.A. where he performs the violin and cello."[10] It was to be released on 21 November 2008, but was pushed back to 24 April 2009.
Wright reunited withAtonement starSaoirse Ronan for the 2011 action thrillerHanna. The title character is a 15-year-old girl trained since birth to be an assassin by her father (Eric Bana), a rogue CIA asset. It received mostly positive reviews, withRoger Ebert calling it a "first-rate thriller".[11] It received an aggregate score of 65 from Metacritic ("generally positive" reviews).[12]
Wright directed the2012 screen adaptation by SirTom Stoppard ofLeo Tolstoy's classic novelAnna Karenina. The cast includedKeira Knightley as Anna,Jude Law as her husband,Aaron Taylor-Johnson as her young love, Irish actorDomhnall Gleeson as Konstantin Levin, as well asKelly Macdonald,Olivia Williams,Matthew Macfadyen andMichelle Dockery.[13][14]Saoirse Ronan andAndrea Riseborough were initially cast, but dropped out and were replaced byAlicia Vikander andRuth Wilson, respectively.[15][16][17]
Wright then directed the2015 prequel toPeter Pan for Warner Bros. The film starredHugh Jackman,Garrett Hedlund,Rooney Mara,Amanda Seyfried andLevi Miller as Peter. The screenplay by actor-turned-screenwriterJason Fuchs was from the 2013Hollywood Black List, a selection of popular unproduced scripts.[18] The film was negatively received by critics and was considered a commercial flop, failing to recoup its budget at the box office.[19][20]Rooney Mara's casting as Tiger Lily caused acontroversy, due to her being ofEuropean ancestry, while Tiger Lily is traditionally portrayed asNative American.[21]
Wright's 2017 filmDarkest Hour covers a pivotal month in the life of former British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. It starsGary Oldman as Churchill, along withBen Mendelsohn,Ronald Pickup,David Schofield,Kristin Scott Thomas,Samuel West andLily James.[22] Wright said the film was a rebuke toDonald Trump.[23]
Wright won aBAFTA Award for best newcomer forPride & Prejudice and was the youngest director to have a film open theVenice Film Festival withAtonement.[24] According to the director's commentary onPride & Prejudice, Wright is influenced by the work of British film directorDavid Lean, and possessing a certain knowledge ofart history, tries sometimes to compose his shots after classical paintings.
Charles II: The Power and The Passion,Pride & Prejudice,Atonement andHanna all have longtracking shots in them.Atonement has a continuous five-minute and five second shot of theDunkirk evacuation. "Basically, I just like showing off", Wright told the audience at theHay Festival.[25]
After meeting on the set ofPride & Prejudice, Wright began a relationship with actressRosamund Pike. They were engaged from 2007 to 2008.[26][27]
Wright was married to British-AmericansitaristAnoushka Shankar from 2010 until 2019.[28] They have two sons, Zubin and Mohan, born in 2011 and 2015.[29][30] They separated in December 2017 and their divorce was finalized in September 2019 as a judge concluded that Wright had committed adultery and that his wife found living with him "intolerable".[31][32]
Since 2017, Wright has been in a relationship with American actressHaley Bennett. Their daughter was born in 2018 inBrooklyn Heights.[33][34][35] As of 2019, the family resides in the UK inSomerset.[36]
Short film
Director
| Year | Title | Distribution |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Pride & Prejudice | Focus Features /Universal Pictures |
| 2007 | Atonement | Universal Pictures |
| 2009 | The Soloist | Paramount Pictures / Universal Pictures |
| 2011 | Hanna | Focus Features /Sony Pictures Releasing |
| 2012 | Anna Karenina | Focus Features |
| 2015 | Pan | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| 2017 | Darkest Hour | Focus Features / Universal Pictures |
| 2021 | The Woman in the Window | Netflix |
| Cyrano | United Artists Releasing / Universal Pictures |
Executive producer
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Nature Boy | Miniseries |
| 2001 | Bob & Rose | 4 episodes |
| 2002 | Bodily Harm | Miniseries |
| 2003 | Charles II: The Power and the Passion | Television film |
| 2016 | Black Mirror | Episode "Nosedive" |
| 2024 | The Agency | 2 episodes |
| 2025 | M. Son of the Century[37] | Director |
| Year | Title | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2005 | Pride & Prejudice | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 2007 | Atonement | 7 | 1 | 14 | 2 | 7 | 2 |
| 2012 | Anna Karenina | 4 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | |
| 2017 | Darkest Hour | 6 | 2 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | Cyrano | 1 | 4 | 2 | |||
| Total | 22 | 4 | 39 | 6 | 13 | 3 | |
| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Pride & Prejudice | BAFTA Awards | Most Promising Newcomer | Won |
| Boston Society of Film Critics | Best New Filmmaker | Won | ||
| Chicago Film Critics Association | Most Promising Filmmaker | Nominated | ||
| Empire Awards | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| London Film Critics' Circle | British Newcomer of the Year | Nominated | ||
| 2007 | Atonement | BAFTA Awards | Best Direction | Nominated |
| Broadcast Film Critics Association | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| London Film Critics' Circle | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| 2021 | The Woman in the Window | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Director | Nominated |
Directed Academy Award performances
